We were recently on a family road trip to St. Louis! My dad had a gig there and we decided to make it a trip for the family. We stayed downtown for two nights and in a different town outside the city in Illinois for another two nights. I already have another post about our trip, check it out here!
This one is about visiting the Gateway Arch.
Wow! I really enjoyed it!
I have seen it at least one other time before, but it’s been years. And I had never gone up inside before this trip. Neither has my dad or siblings, although my mom went up when she was a kid.
I enjoyed views of it before our “official experience”. It’s just so huge and tall and crazy! I liked seeing it as we drove into St. Louis and crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River, as well as views of it while we were in the city.
But during our time there we had tickets to go see a film about the Arch and to ride up to the top. So, on Wednesday afternoon we made our way to the Arch Visitor Center Entrance which actually led to a big building underground, some of it being directly under the Arch! I thought it was neat that most of the building was under grass that we eventually walked over!
We watched a cool film about the making of the Arch. I knew pretty much nothing about this so it was very eye-opening. It was interesting to see how they had a big machine type thing that would climb up the sides of the Arch as they built it up, so they could keep working on it. It was crazy seeing the footage of when the Arch was taller and the guys working on it- I can’t believe how they had no fall equipment! It was weird seeing them working up there like that! Amazingly they didn’t loose anyone during the process of building it. Before they took a lot design submissions of the monument and the grounds surrounding it. It also took them quite a while before they started the construction.
There was also a really nice museum there. It was a modern, interesting and nice looking museum. I think we did a little before the ride up and a little after, we didn’t go through everything that was there, we bopped around and kept it pretty light but there were some neat things we looked at. Some of the things we saw talked about Lewis and Clark, the old St. Louis, things in and having to do with different time periods as well as stuff on the building of the Arch, including little models of other design submissions for the Arch and the grounds around it. Here is a picture of this model they had of the trams which you could move with a crank.
As we were in line for the ride up, we got to talk and ask questions to the staff guy there who was really nice. One of the things he said was that these trams are the original ones! Among other things, he said that they can have little down times for a few minutes, in which the mechanics fix. He said they know those trams very well.
Eventually each little group at our time slot had to stand on little circles based on the number he gave us, then he then gave a little briefing and we watched a video projected on the walls while we were standing there. Then we took a family picture that they would make the background into a photo of the Arch, and made our way to the tram doors, standing at each of our circles. There was a video playing on the door as we waited. It was kind of an odd and funny thing!
I was nervous, but I knew they run these all the time. The door eventually opened to each of the group’s trams, other people got out and we got in. There were 5 seats but it was tight for us. Then the door closed and we started going up! It was… interesting! I mean, nothing bad happened going up, it just felt weird and a bit concerning. 😂
Wow, when we got up there- it was really neat.
Now we have had a similar experience at the Washington Monument not too long ago. The beginning part at the ground was different. That was a large elevator to go up and at the top, although the windows were small, it was a fairly large area. There was even a little museum up there! These trams felt a lot different. But this viewing area at the top was nice! The windows were slightly larger it felt like, although still small. The way the wall was set around them it was a bit awkward to look through and hard to get the full picture. But, wow. You’re at the top of the Arch! That feeling is so cool. The views are awesome. The Mississippi River and Illinois on one side, St. Louis on the other. I liked seeing the Arch’s shadow, and the legs of the Arch below us if you look out and over enough. It was very neat!
On the way down, we had a minor problem with the trams. They all just stopped at a certain point and we stayed like that for a solid few minutes. It was a little concerning. 🥲 This was probably what the staff guy was saying before, of course we would be in there for one of those times! Eventually we could hear people from the other trams talking- there were little vents at the top of the tram- and then a mechanic or someone calling out. We then saw a guy’s shoes on the stairs right next to where we were stalled, he asked if we were okay and then the trams started moving. So yeah, it was a little bit nerve wracking- in reality it was a few minutes but now our joke is that we have to make it a bigger story!
They had a nice gift shop we went through and some of us got some things. Later on we went outside, sat on the steps facing the Mississippi River and also took a LOT of photos from all sorts of places around the Arch. We got some pretty good ones! I liked how a lot of them turned out and I enjoyed ones we did where we we jumping in front of the Arch! They aren’t in this post.
I just found the Arch really crazy, fascinating, neat and inspiring! The grass, sidewalk and stuff around it was really beautiful and added to the Arch. I liked a lot of the angles of the pictures we got. I loved seeing it on the ground, hearing about the making of it, being up IN it! It was a cool experience!
What’s something you liked about it (and why)? I loved the wow factor of it! I was amazed and inspired by it’s hugeness and shape when we’d see it on the ground. It was a little easier to loose that grandness when we were up inside for some reason, but I think I had moments of realizing how we’re actually up inside! I also enjoyed those old videos of them working on the Arch, especially them up at the top with no fall protection.
What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? I don’t know how much I disliked this, but I was a little nervous throughout the tram process. Knowing they were the original ones, they didn’t feel super stable and were small inside. The leg of the Arch wasn’t very wide. The tram would keep tilting slightly and then resetting in order to make the curve up or down. It was nerve-racking knowing how high we were and the idea of us being up in the legs of the Arch, and just having to be super reliant on these seemingly unstable mechanics and to do that where we were. Plus they said how many minutes it took to get up and to get down and going down was one minute less- not a big deal but that felt a bit scary! 😂 Obviously it ended up being fine. And obviously they would not be using these if they weren’t safe. It may have felt like an adventure though too, especially now looking back on it I can say that it was.
What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? I learned some new interesting things about the making of the Arch and the Arch itself including this fact… the Arch is designed to sway as much as 18 inches in 150 mile per hour winds and it can withstand an earthquake!
Also I can picture it and where it is better now from being there and how it’s right on the river, which is the divider between Illinois and Missouri which I didn’t know or forgot. It was also just a cool experience to be up at the top.
What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? I’d like to learn more about the Arch early on and more about our country’s history!
Thank you for reading!
Lucy